davidtraversa-1

I don't have the necessary English vocabulary to praise this jewel of a film. But no matter how wide the knowledge of a language can be, one will always fall short when praising this remarkable creation.

Simply amazing: Director (Pietro Germi), actors, camera, script... Perfection, absolute perfection. Every single situation is played with amazing vitality and bubbling gags are practically in every scene in this bittersweet story.

One hopes Sicilians have changed their "morals" from the 1950s to today, because nowadays the conflict depicted here seems unreal and preposterous: A guy (Peppino Califano) refuses to marry the girl (Stefania Sandrelli) (15 going to 16) because, "since she gave in to his sexual advances", now she's considered a "Puttana" and men require to marry virgins, otherwise he'll be the laughing stock in the village (a Cornuto).

The central character of the story is the father of this girl, the "offended" party, and the fireworks displayed by this actor (Saro Urzi) are just out of this world. The beauty of Stefania Sandrelli was also out of this world, as she looks like a Madonna painted by a Rinascimento master.

And she breaks our hearts finding herself in that tremendous conflict that will take her to an inevitable nervous breakdown. Again, women's position in Sicily was very close to total servitude to the dominant male in the family.

Lightweight comedy for a wrenching situation until the very bitter ending. Try watching this impossibly wonderful movie, a gift from the Gods of Cinecittà.

I couldn't believe the first few scenes on this film seeing Zully Moreno without makeup. Practically unthinkable. But it happened! Her character is that of a youngish woman entering middle age before her time. Tailored suits, sensible shoes, tight hairdo with a french chignon and mousy brown hair. She had decided love was out of the question in her case and resigned herself to have a sedated life, going to the movies alone or with her only close female friend (Juana Sujo) and very little else.

But one day her eye is caught by a small newspaper ad (yes, at that time newspapers were printed on PAPER! remember that we are in 1949) and such ad was asking for "a lady with no relatives to meet a well-bred middle aged gentleman", etc.

Of course you know right there that Zully's life (well, her character in the movie) was going to have a drastic change from that moment on.

And drastic is a mild way to put it..., to start with, since she responded to that add, the well-bred gentleman wrote her a letter asking to see her, giving her an address. Without thinking twice she (obviously) decided to have a change of image and walked into a beauty parlor... wow! what came out of it was... Zully Moreno!! dolled up and blond as a Valkyria with a floating shoulder length mass of hair, a tiny waistline and truly yours gorgeous!

Enough about Zully.

The movie is quite mediocre; every scene we have seen a thousand times before and after in so many soap operas, better or worse, depending on personal taste.

A character that is ABSOLUTELY out of place and totally incomprehensible within the mystery plot is the one played by Juana Sujo. Nobody seemed to have had the remotest idea about what to do with her during the filming of this drama (not to mention the puzzled audience), because if somebody from the crew have had just the thinnest idea about her conduct, she could have made (maybe) some sense within the story.

A solution to this intringulis comes to mind: Could it be that being such an old film when they restored it they left out some scenes where miss Sujo finds out something very important that predisposes her to that mad behavior during her visit?

As it was presented, she was incredibly hostile to Zully (her BEST FRIEND??) to Zully's husband and to the audience, because many times she looks into the camera lens in close ups with such hate and hallucination that she seems to be judging negatively my demitasse porcelain cups behind the glass in the dining room, where I was watching the movie.

Don't waste your time with this one. Just watch it briefly to get acquainted with the Tigre, a beautiful delta consisting of many small islands covered with a luxuriant forest just in front of Buenos Aires, few minutes away by boat, where people have summer houses.

A very young Carlos Thompson plays a handsome policeman that works in the delta and we can easily imagine the relation of his being in this movie with the budding of a new romance as a deserved fresh new beginning in life for our beleaguered protagonist.